Robert Cialdini explains how scarcity and exclusivity shape decisions. When a company learned about an Australian beef shortage before competitors, that exclusive information made people listen and act. Share time-stamped, exclusive details with colleagues fast to increase your influence.
Something very important to note. This man came to me afterwards, the owner of the company, and he said, you know, all of this was true. There was a coming shortage of Australian beef. We did get this information from our exclusive sources, sources that we had built for many years in Australia, and we never knew to use it before. These conditions have existed before in the history of my company. And we didn't know how to use this information about scarcity and exclusivity. Even when it was all true, we just didn't know how to do it. That's because they didn't know what the research says. Well, now you know what the research says. So what are the implications for you? Here's the clearest. When you get a new piece of information that comes to you, perhaps from some source that other people don't have, you get that new piece of information and it is consistent with some change that you want another person to make, perhaps a colleague of yours, you want to move in your direction on some new program, you should move immediately with that piece of information immediately. The newer it is, the more exclusive it is. And when things are exclusive, people listen differently to what we have to say. If they're one of the few people who know something, they want to listen differently to be sure they know everything about this idea. So if we've got such a person in our company and we want to take him that new information, we should be sure to say, when we bring that information. I just got this today. It just came across my desk this. This morning. Do that honestly. Don't delay. Send that information immediately. And the more exclusive it is, the more that person will want to listen to what you have to say with it. Okay? So we can do that sort of thing and use the principle of scarcity to make a difference. Now, let's take another minute or so to think about how you could use the principle of scarcity along with exclusivity, to increase your success on the challenge that you thought about at the beginning of our time together. So let's take a few seconds and do that.
